Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Joel · About this commentary
Tyre, Sidon, and the Coasts
Joel 3:4-8
4 “Yes, and what are you to me, Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Will you repay me? And if you repay me, I will swiftly and speedily return your repayment on your own head. · WEB
The trading cities are addressed directly, and the sentence is their own transaction reversed.
What are you to me, Tyre and Sidon , and all the regions of Philistia ? The question opens with something like contempt for the idea that these states have a claim, and the accusation is put as a challenge: will you repay me?
The crime has two parts. They took silver and gold and carried the finest treasures into their temples — plunder converted into worship, which makes it a religious offense rather than merely an economic one. And they sold the children of Judah to the sons of the Greeks, deliberately, that you may remove them far from their border. Distance was the point; a slave sold far enough away cannot be redeemed by relatives.
The sentence in verses 7 and 8 is the transaction run backward. God will stir them up out of the place where they were sold — the far distance turns out not to be far enough — and the sellers' own children will be sold, this time to Sheba, a faraway nation. The reversal is exact, and the book states its principle plainly at verse 7: your repayment returned on your own head.
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